Now, a University of Guelph engineer is leading a pioneering drone project intended to help curb light leaks from commercial greenhouses, ensuring optimum plant yields for the province’s ever-growing vegetable and flower production.

Dr. William Lubitz, a professor in the School of Engineering, and graduate student Benjamin Snow are using drone technology to measure light emanating from Ontario greenhouses.

“It’s common to measure light inside a greenhouse and its effects on crops. There’s much less information on light that comes out of greenhouses,” says Lubitz. “We’re trying to fill that gap in Ontario.”

The project will help provide data that is lacking even as municipalities, notably Kingsville and Leamington, Ont., have enacted bylaws to limit light pollution from growers.

“Measuring light is actually very difficult in the field,” says Lubitz. Light contains varying spectra and people perceive light differently depending on its amount, colour, intensity and other factors.

Drone technology can help measure light emanating from greenhouses. The team will collect photos and data from light intensity sensors mounted on a drone hovering above the greenhouses. By opening and closing light abatement curtains on the greenhouse ceilings and varying the lighting, they will study amounts and kinds of illumination.

The team hopes their data will help growers find an optimum balance while complying with light pollution bylaws. This work is part of a larger project funded by the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, with support from the Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers.

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Helping to answer these and other large-scale questions about life on Earth is the goal of BIOSCAN, a University of Guelph-led global biodiversity project that was awarded $24 million in federal funding this year.

Led by Dr. Paul Hebert, a professor in the College of Biological Science and director of U of G’s Centre for Biodiversity Genomics, a worldwide, interdisciplinary research team will use the award to advance this ambitious eight-year project begun in 2019.

BIOSCAN will inventory multicellular species, probe their interactions and dynamics, and enable researchers to help protect natural resources, ecosystems and human health.

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The University contributes more than $2-billion worth of GDP to the local economy annually, including sustaining more than 13,400 jobs and generating $686 million in labour income.

Students alone contribute $444 million in living expenses and dedicate 1.5 million volunteer hours each year to the City of Guelph and Wellington County.

“This report explains how the University’s teaching, research and community-building endeavours contribute to stronger, more sustainable and more inclusive economies,”

said president
Dr. Charlotte Yates

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The ranking lists the world’s best universities for research impact and academic reputation in 51 academic subjects and includes some 1,300 universities from 80 locations worldwide.

OVC held onto its fifth-place ranking from 2020; the college has consistently placed in the top 10 since QS first included veterinary science in its rankings in 2015.

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U of G was the top university and fourth overall in the ranking of Canada’s Best
Employers released early this year.

In a Forbes article, Martha Harley, associate vice-president (human resources), says a sense of belonging and recognition is key to employee satisfaction.

“We are renowned in terms of our various areas of research and study around the world,” she says. “To combine that world-class piece with a community feeling is really a feat, I think.”

The ranking was based on a survey of more than 8,000 Canadians who worked for organizations with at least 500 employees.

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Dr. Maya Goldenberg, a professor in the Department of Philosophy, has become a “go-to” specialist in Canada and beyond on everything from vaccine hesitancy to safety of COVID-19 vaccines. 

An expert in the philosophy of science and medicine, she has recently focused on why some people refuse vaccines or become wary of science – more or less the topic of her new book published this spring, Vaccine Hesitancy: Public Trust, Expertise, and the War on Science. 

She says vaccine acceptance is less about vaccine science and more about people’s perception of social and government structures around vaccines.  

For anyone discontented with government and institutional structures, that unease may be projected onto their view of vaccines, Goldenberg says.

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The donation by long-time U of G benefactor Edward (Ted) Morwick is intended to support significant advancements in infrastructure, innovation, research and training.

About 2.5 billion people worldwide depend solely on groundwater for basic needs. Climate change, population growth and pollution from human activities are causing groundwater shortages.

The G360 Institute studies groundwater and surface water interaction in fractured sedimentary bedrock to ensure safe and sustainable supplies.

The institute, to be renamed as the Morwick G360 Groundwater Research Institute, brings together more than 20 institutions in 10 countries through field-based research.

An honorary U of G graduate, lawyer, cattle breeder and published author, Morwick has contributed to the University since 2010 through scholarships in creative writing, aquatic biology and water resource engineering. These awards have supported 39 students to date.

From this new gift, $4 million will support renovations and capital improvements to the Bedrock Aquifer Field Facility, which will be renamed the Morwick Groundwater Research Centre.

“The building will be for research and education and will help in advancing technology as it relates to groundwater,” said Morwick. “I am hopeful it will play a very significant role in protecting our global groundwater supplies.”

Another $4 million will support an innovation fund. The fund will be led by the Morwick Chair in Sustainable Groundwater Research, to be held by Dr. Beth Parker, founder of the institute and a professor in the School of Engineering.

As part of the gift, the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences and the College of Biological Science will each receive $1 million for summer student research assistantships in water and climate change research.

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“Donkeys are photogenic farm animals,” said Robinson, who shared his experience in animal breeding and farm life in remote videoconference lectures.

Other professors in the Ontario Agricultural College found ways to “bring the farm home,” including Dr. Mike Steele, who used videos and virtual farm tours for his dairy cattle nutrition course, and Dr. Katrina Merkies, who used virtual learning to teach equine management.

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Smart Contact Tracing, a smartphone app, ensures greater accuracy and privacy than other systems while identifying recent contacts infected with COVID-19 and reminding users to maintain physical distancing, says engineering professor Petros Spachos.

“The application we developed could be very useful as an upgrade to any contact tracing application available,” he says.

Apps perform well on phones that are “visible” to each other but lose accuracy when the devices are in a pocket, purse or backpack. The U of G app uses machine learning to improve accuracy in “hidden phone” scenarios from about 56 per cent to 87 per cent.

The app also “learns” to distinguish when the user is at home or in another private space and stops recording contact information there.

The researchers have worked with a Toronto wireless communication firm on development of the app.

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